Desolate days. Sub-zero nights. Will it ever end? Suddenly, rays of warmth and sunshine pour out of our mailboxes.

The arrival of seed catalogs, timed to prime our senses and cripple our mail carriers, is a holiday. Light the fireplace, curl up with the dachshund, sip a warm toddy and page through the enchanted fantasyland.

It’s impossible to imagine through the ice and drifts, but there will be green and sweet smells of soil in a few short months. When the catalogs arrive, dormant bodies urge for muddy knees and our animal instinct for digging holes suddenly awakens.

Catalogs are mesmerizing but must be considered for what they are, harbingers of horticultural hype. Beware: If you even think of buying something, you’ll get on somebody’s A-list. That means you’re on everybody’s list.

As the catalogs pile up, we actually feel guilty for not buying at least something.

TERRIFIC AWESOMENESS

“Yields are terrific with each plant producing a seemingly endless supply. We guarantee you will find yourself eating these treats like candy.”

Who writes this stuff, anyway? For heaven’s sake, all we want is a tomato.

Catalogs are hypnotic. Publishers spy on us to reveal the exact moment when we are most pocketbook vulnerable for spring. Then the catalogs fall from the winter sky like Scud missiles.

We are blinded by rows of lush cabbage with zero worm holes. No rabbits eating these peas. No Japanese beetles chewing the rest.

Not even a mosquito bite on the cutie bent over the rutabagas. She could sell us an albino eggplant in February. And she does.

WHAT DISASTER?

Somehow, last year’s garden disaster remains buried under heaps of pulp and ink. The killer heat. The voracious whiteflies. The epidemic fusarium wilt and early blight. None here.

Incidentally, they never show you shovels, sweat bands, blister balm, Absorbine Jr. or and any other reminders that, perhaps, gardening means work. The only thing they dig up is more adjectives: “Smooth, deep, gold, firm, juicy, the sweetest of the sweet.”

After sugar, you’re ready for violence. “Control” and “death” punctuate the chemicals:

“When leaf-chewing worms eat leaves treated with this control, it paralyzes their digestive systems, and they starve to death ...”

Land’s End should sell this gratification.

5 things you need to know

Before you rush off to the Internet, here’s five things you need to know about seed catalogs:

1. TEMPER ENTHUSIASM

The wish books tempt you to buy seeds in bulk to save money. Think clearly: Do you really need 800 kohlrabi plants?

Your better catalogs have gone to the dogs. Publishers discovered that a bearded chap this side of “Duck Dynasty” holding a terrier increases sales by 7 percent. Ignore the people models. They’re paid to look down-homely.

4. WHAT A STEAL

Catalogs usually find space to remind us we could buy a three pack of tomatoes come springtime for such and such, the same price as their pack of 50 seeds. They never mention “some assembly required.”

5. ZUCCHINO RAMPICANTE FACTOR

The University of Somewhere did a survey that found if you cannot pronounce the name of a vegetable, you’ll probably not eat it. Translation: If it’s called Table Queen squash, it’s OK. Rouge Vif D’ Tampes is more problematic.